The Readaholics and the Gothic Gala (5 page)

“Poe. Did you know he went to West Point before he started writing and got all creepy? One of my friends from high school got an appointment to West Point. He gave it up after a year, like Poe, but he kept his uniforms. He couldn't stand all the rules—rules for what to wear, rules for how to fold your socks, rules for how to eat. We all tried to tell him he wouldn't like it, but he was all about being an army officer. Watched
Taps
too many times. Anyway, he's letting me borrow one of his uniforms. And I've got a stuffed raven that says ‘Nevermore.' It's proximity activated, like those Santas that
go ‘ho-ho-ho' if you walk past them in department stores near Christmastime? ‘Nevermore, nevermore,'” he croaked, beaming. “Maybe I'll bring it to the office and keep it on my desk.”

“Don't you dare,” I said, tucking Francesca's hat under my arm and making my escape.

T
he Columbine is Heaven's nicest B and B. The building dates from the late 1880s, when the town was incorporated as Walter's Ford, and Sandy Milliken and her husband, transplants from the East Coast, spent beaucoup bucks fixing it up. It sits on a quiet, treelined street a block from downtown, and it isn't hard for tourists to locate—its pale tangerine paint with the carnation pink gingerbread makes it visible for miles. In the spring, hanging baskets of pink and orange petunias, pansies, marigolds, and other flowers add to the colorful effect. At this time of year, with the nights already dipping below freezing, Sandy had replaced the hanging baskets with potted mums in bronzes and creams that sat on either side of each of the six stone steps leading to the Victorian B and B's double oak doors.

I nudged one door open and entered. The foyer, graced with wide-plank oak floors, Laura Ashley fabrics, and a Tiffany chandelier, murmured of history and the expensive restoration. It smelled like lemon furniture polish. It was quiet at this time of day with most guests dressing for the costume ball, I guessed, and Sandy and her husband working on their never-ending to-do list of repairs, modernizations, and
routine maintenance. She'd told me once that they'd had no idea what they were getting into when they left their Madison Avenue jobs to take on the B and B.

“I imagined that my having a background in advertising and Dave being in finance would be useful when we bought this place,” Sandy had said. “We'd have been better off with a plumbing certificate and a high school class in woodworking!” Her droll expression made me grin.

I could just leave Francesca's hat on the registration counter, but I was reluctant to do that. Before I could call out for Sandy or Dave, I heard voices from the room ahead of me on the left. It was a small parlor, decked out with reproduction Victorian furnishings, where Sandy kept hot coffee and tea going all day. I walked toward the room, but something about the intensity of the voices, lowered but intermittently audible, made me hesitate.

“—told you I will not tolerate—” It sounded like Constance Aldringham, but I couldn't be sure. “—playing you for a—”

Was she haranguing Merle, annoyed by his evident pleasure in meeting Maud again? The voice that replied to her was female. Allyson.

“I'm an adult and I'll do what I want to.” Fury thrummed in her voice and she was making no effort to be discreet. “I don't need a keeper! You treat me like I'm too stupid to be let out alone. Well, I'm done with this, with only being the daughter of the bestselling Constance Aldringham. I need to be me—I need to listen to my inner goddess.”

I almost gagged. Allyson Aldringham was a
Fifty
Shades
fan. I knew that only because, for a joke, the Readaholics had read the book last year. It had been vaguely titillating, but I gave up on it after about the twelfth reference to the heroine's—no,
stooge's
—“inner goddess.” Maud had posted a very funny essay on her blog about how the book was really written by a committee of men conspiring to convince young girls that they should continue to accept lower wages and glass ceilings. She suggested, tongue in cheek (I think), that the book was about economic bondage, but Kerry told her it was just smut.

“You don't really need a secretary,” Allyson went on. “You only talked me into coming on this book tour because you wanted to keep an eye on me. Well, I'm going back to California. He said he's going to be out there next week, and I'm going to see him.”

Allyson didn't add “So there!” but I could hear it on the air. I wondered who the mysterious “he” was that had mother and daughter fighting like, well, mother and daughter. Cats and dogs have nothing on mothers and daughters when it comes to fighting.

Suddenly feeling guilty about eavesdropping, I retreated a couple of steps and called out, “Sandy? Dave? Anyone here?”

“In the kitchen.” Sandy's voice floated to me. I followed it, peeking casually into the parlor as I passed it. Constance and Allyson stood three feet apart from each other, stiffer than waxworks, cheeks flushed, eyes turned to the door.

“Oh, hi,” I said in a voice that clearly implied, “I didn't know you were here and I certainly wasn't
listening to your argument.” I waved the hat. “Francesca left this at the school.” Without waiting for a reply, I navigated the maze of hallways to the kitchen (where I had supervised many a party) and gave the hat into Sandy's keeping, regretfully declining the opportunity to sample her new currant and rosemary scone recipe on the grounds that I needed to head out to the Club.

The parlor was empty when I passed it. I heard footsteps on the stairs, but when I arrived in the foyer, no one was in sight. A door closed on the floor above me as I let myself out of the B and B. When I got back in the van and pulled away from the curb, movement in my peripheral vision made me look to my right. Slightly ahead of me, a man emerged from the alley formed by two rows of evergreens that led to the rear of the Columbine. He brushed a twig from his arm and set a brisk pace walking west.

As I passed him, I recognized the stranger with the crew cut from the panel discussion and the auction. What was he doing at the Columbine? I wondered, keeping an eye on him in the rearview mirror. He couldn't be staying there, because all of Sandy's rooms were taken by the gothic guests of honor and their families. Maybe he'd stopped by to see if a room was available and was now searching for alternate accommodations. His presence felt suspicious. He didn't look like he could afford the Columbine's rates, but that didn't prove anything. Could he be casing the inn? Mentally chastising myself for thinking ill of the man because he looked a bit down and out, I lost sight of him and determinedly put him out of my mind.

*   *   *

At home in my two-bedroom bungalow, which I'd bought with Kerry's help (she was a Realtor in addition to being the mayor) only seven months ago, I took a quick shower and eyed the Catwoman costume hanging in my closet. Hart, who was taking me to the ball, had turned out to be surprisingly enthusiastic about a costume party. Most men I know duck out of costume parties whenever possible, and if they have to go, they make their wives or girlfriends choose their costumes, or they insist on going as something totally simple, like a football player (which requires only a jersey they already have hanging in their closet) or a surfer (if they have abs they want to show off). Not Hart.

No sooner had I mentioned the ball to Hart than he announced, “Batman and Catwoman.”

We were at a barbecue place outside Grand Junction, broiling on the patio, and I licked sauce off my fingers before asking, “What?”

“We can go as Batman and Catwoman.” His lean face lit up with enthusiasm. “Think about it. . . . There's no superhero more gothic than Batman. Even the city he lives in is called Gotham. And the new show—not that Batman or Catwoman are really in it—it oozes ‘gothic' with all the smog and darkness, and Arkham Asylum.”

“I didn't know you were so into comic books.” I looked at him with new eyes, worried that he'd gone all Leonard or Sheldon on me. But no. He still had ever-so-slightly receding curly brown hair, a nose that had
clearly been broken at least once, and tanned skin that said he spent time fishing or golfing or playing league softball. He was almost a foot taller than me, maybe six-four, and had a subtle air of command, which I figured came from more than a decade as a police officer, including time as an Atlanta detective. Nothing about him said “geek.”

“Please,” he said with mock affront. “Graphic novels.” He bit into his pulled pork sandwich, which leaked. He swabbed barbecue sauce off his chin.

“Don't tell me you own a Batman costume.” My tone said I was prepared to reevaluate the nature of our relationship—not that I knew what that was yet—if he said yes.

He grinned. “No, but I know where I can rent one. Come on, it'll be fun. What did you want to go as?”

“Jane Eyre.” Going as the governess felt more literary, and her long skirts would hide my thighs much better than a Catwoman outfit would. Comic book heroines and villainesses never needed to lose a few pounds. Frankly, most of them were so top-heavy, I was surprised they could stand upright. A car blew past, sending a swirl of exhaust and grit onto the patio. I coughed.

Hart chewed and swallowed before saying, “I'd have to be Heathcliff, right? He's the
Jane Eyre
guy, isn't he, or is he the
Wuthering Heights
guy?” Without waiting for an answer, he gave me a coaxing smile. “C'mon. There'll be fourteen Jane Eyres at the party. I bet you'll be the only Catwoman. And Catwoman is a hundred times hotter than Jane Eyre.” He waggled his brows
and I laughed, conceding defeat by toasting him with my sweating iced-tea cup.

Now I removed the black catsuit from the hanger and unzipped it. The fabric—some sort of rubberized latex that, thankfully, had a bit of stretch—felt slick. Wriggling into the suit, I sucked in my tummy and zipped it up, checking my rear view in the mirror. Not as . . . prominent as I'd thought it might be. In fact, not bad at all. I pulled on the black boots that had come with the costume rental, and twisted my coppery hair up before sliding on the cat ears attached to a headband. A strip mask across my face—very Lone Ranger, I thought—completed my costume. “Meow,” I said to the mirror, making a scratching motion with one hand.

Laughing at myself, I gathered my purse and keys and headed for the Club. I was driving myself, since I needed to be there so early. Hart would arrive with the rest of the guests. He'd warned me that he was on call tonight, and might get called away by police business. I almost hoped it happened, because I couldn't think of anything much funnier than him showing up at a crime scene dressed as Batman.

I
stood beside the Caped Crusader on the landing overlooking the lobby of the Club, watching the guests swirl and laugh and mingle. There was really no way to “gothicize” the lobby, which screamed “hunting lodge” with its massive deer antler chandeliers and the roaring grizzly head mounted over the main doors, but Lola and her crew had transported the potted forest from Book Bliss, and the guests had entered through an alley of trees just inside the doors. The fog machines I'd rented added to the atmosphere, too, spewing fog that refracted the light in interesting ways, cloaking or revealing guests as it massed and dispersed. It didn't seem to bother the guests, a mix of vampires, brooding Heathcliff types, cowled monks, sinister housekeepers, Elviras, and the like. Hart was right in saying that I'd be the only Catwoman, although I did spot another Batman—a paunchy superhero several inches too short for the costume, since his cape trailed the floor behind him.

“Seems to be going well,” Hart said. His tight-fitting Batman costume showed off muscles in his thighs I hadn't known were there, and outlined biceps I'd appreciated whenever he wore a short-sleeved shirt. He'd
taken off his mask, saying it itched, and his gaze roved over the crowd in that policeman way I was growing accustomed to. He was never completely off duty.

“
Sh.
You'll jinx it.” It did seem to be going well, though, with music and laughter mingling in the way that indicated a good time was being had by all. I took pride in that, since I'd coordinated everything from the ticket sales (the tickets were bat-shaped pieces of thin cardboard), to the food and drink (carried off to perfection, as always, by Wallace Pinnecoose and his staff), to the looping video in the ballroom showing scenes from classic gothic films and TV shows, interspersed with still images of gothic-novel book covers. It had been a while since I'd had this much fun putting an event together; I almost felt guilty charging Gemma for my services. Almost.

From my vantage point, I spotted Maud Bell as a svelte Emma Peel, in a catsuit not too different from my Catwoman attire. She might be in her sixties, but she was still slim and sexy in a Helen Mirren–ish sort of way, her silver and iron hair curled into a flip. If Francesca's producer, Cosmo Zeller, spotted her, he might try to rope her into a new version of
The Avengers: The Golden Years
. Joe Wrobleski, her partner, made a suave John Steed, wearing a bowler hat and twirling an umbrella. I almost didn't recognize him—he'd shaved off his beard. I wasn't sure
The Avengers
really qualified as “gothic,” but I wasn't the costume police. A cowled monk hovered near them, and from the way his head inclined toward Maud, I suspected it was Merle Aldringham. I didn't see Constance nearby, and I
wondered how their little get-together for preparty cocktails had gone.

“Amy-Faye!”

I tracked the voice and saw Brooke and Lola waving at me. Brooke was beautiful as Rebecca from du Maurier's classic novel. The period costume suited her and her white dress with the puff sleeves swished as she came up the stairs toward us. She looked just the way I imagined the character. My days as an English undergrad came back to me, and I couldn't help pondering the fact that she was at a costume party, dressed as a character in a book going to a costume party, who dressed like a woman in a painting. It was all too meta for me to get my mind around. I planned to finish the book when I got home tonight. Lola wore what looked like a man's garb from the eighteen hundreds, complete with eye patch under her glasses, and a sword swinging at her hip. A ruffled white shirt set off her dark skin to perfection.

“You look great, Lo,” I said, hugging her. “Who are you?”

“Van Helsing,” she said. “Complete with a stake for subduing all these vampires.” She pulled out her “sword,” which turned out to be a pointed metal rod for staking up shrubs. “I decided I'd rather be a vampire killer than a victim.” She gestured over the railing at three Mina-esque girls, all wearing long nightgowns ranging from diaphanous to modest, chatting with two vampires.

Typical Lo. If she'd been the “victim” type, she'd never have been able to help raise Axie after their
parents' deaths, get a scholarship to A&M, and figure out how to make a living from the small farm she'd been raised on. “Thanks for getting the ‘forest' moved over here,” I said. “You must be exhausted.”

“I'll sleep well tonight,” she admitted with a smile.

I didn't bother telling Brooke she looked gorgeous, because she always looked gorgeous. She hadn't changed much since her reign as Miss Colorado.

“Troy's gone to get drinks,” she said, referring to her husband.

“Is he Max?” I asked.

She pouted. “No, he didn't want to go to the bother. He's a vampire with nothing more than fake teeth and a cape. Party pooper.”

I couldn't see droopy-shouldered, light-haired Troy as a vampire, but I didn't say so. But then, he wasn't my idea of Maxim de Winter, either. “At least he came.”

“You are looking
très
,
très
hot in that catsuit, girlfriend,” Brooke said.

“That's what I told her.” Hart nodded.

I blushed. “Aw, shucks.” Compliments always made me uncomfortable.

“Too bad catsuits aren't more practical,” Brooke continued. “I mean, you practically have to strip to use the bathroom. Otherwise, I'd suggest you stock up. And who are you supposed to be?” she teased Hart.

“I'm Batman,” he announced in a surprisingly good imitation of Michael Keaton's rendering of the campy line. He struck a pose with his hands on his hips.

“Foiled any villainous plots this evening? Taken down the Joker or the Riddler?”

“Not so far.” He smiled. “But the evening's young.”

“Sh,”
I cautioned again. “You'll jinx it.”

I hadn't even finished talking when raised voices drew our attention. They seemed to be coming from under the landing, and even though I leaned over the railing, I couldn't see who it was. “Now see what you did?” I said to Hart before hurrying down the stairs. He, Lola, and Brooke followed hard on my heels. I heard a clanking noise as we descended, but kept on going.

Partygoers had drawn back from the couple scowling at each other. Mary Stewart, beautiful and virginal in an embroidered white Victorian nightgown that reeked of “Jane Eyre,” held a woman I didn't recognize by the arm. She was short, on the chunky side, and wore a glower that was incongruous with her nun outfit.

“Let me go. You have no right.” She tried to jerk her arm away but failed. Mary must have been stronger than she looked, because the woman was no lightweight.

“Can I help?” I asked in a calm voice.

Mary's head turned toward me and she gave my attire a reluctantly admiring once-over before saying, “This is Eloise Hufnagle, the woman who has been stalking me.”

“She stole my book,” Eloise said loudly. “She shouldn't get away with it.” Her already ruddy face flushed with anger.

“Let go of her arm, ma'am,” Hart said with quiet authority, “and we can discuss this someplace private.”

“The manager's office,” I said, catching Wallace Pinnecoose's eye. He was headed our way; he had an eerie Spidey sense about trouble at his club.

“In other circumstances, I might find your assumption of authority appealing, Batman,” Mary said, her gaze sliding along Hart's athletic figure in a way that made me stiffen, “but I'm not turning her loose. She's been creeping around after me all day. Maybe for weeks.“

Silently, Hart flipped his badge over his utility belt.

Mary breathed in on a sharp
ooh
. “You're a cop. A real crime fighter. Great, she's all yours. Just keep her away from me. Last time I ran into her, she drenched me with blood. That's a crime, right? Assault, or at least vandalism? I should have had her arrested.”

Eloise, who had been struggling to free herself, suddenly stilled, her eyes fixing on something behind us. “What are you doing here—?” she gasped.

Involuntarily, I turned to see whom she was talking to. Lucas, attracted by the fuss around Mary, was coming toward us, dressed, if I wasn't mistaken, as the portrait of Dorian Gray. I figured this out because he had a gilt-painted cardboard frame rising like a ruff behind his head. I gave him props for not doing the easy thing and coming as Rochester or a vampire. Allyson Aldringham, dressed in a Red Riding Hood cape, trailed behind him, looking both besotted and unhappy. Merle and Constance Aldringham stood a few feet away, both of them with a stiffness that said they'd been arguing. I was pleased to see I'd been right about the cowled monk being Merle. Constance wore a period dress I thought I recognized from the cover of one of her books. I couldn't recall the character's name, although I was darn sure she was a lot younger than
Constance. She shot Allyson and Lucas a look from narrowed eyes and beckoned for her daughter. Allyson's chin went up a notch, but then she drifted toward her parents. I was pretty sure Lucas didn't even notice her defection; he was intent on reaching his sister.

The stranger I thought might be a sailor was watching us while gulping down a mixed drink like he'd been at sea for six months without fluids of any kind. He hadn't bothered with a costume and seemed to be wearing the same jeans as earlier. He turned away when he noticed me staring at him, snapped his empty glass onto a nearby tray, and melted into the crowd. Weird. He practically knocked into Francesca Bugle, bustling toward us in garnet-colored Victorian garb, saying, “Mary, dear, is everything okay?” Cosmo Zeller came with her, dressed as a generic Victorian or Edwardian gentleman, complete with cane and pocket watch.

Eloise, taking advantage of our distraction, swung her purse with her free arm. It clonked Mary on the knee and Eloise tore herself free. Instead of running, she dug in her purse, pulled out a jar filled with red fluid, tore off the lid, and flung the contents at Mary. The red gook spattered everyone within a ten-foot radius, and Eloise took off as we all instinctively recoiled. Hiking up her nun's habit, she displayed neon-colored running shoes and surprising speed as she dashed toward the main doors. She dug out another jar and pitched its contents to her left and right, spattering partygoers with the fake blood.

There were gasps of outrage and disgust as people
backed away. I heard a muttered “Gross,” and a wailed “My dress!”

“Catch that nun,” someone shouted.

A couple of people half turned as Eloise brushed past them, and one man reached out his arm as if to grab her, but she eeled away and was out the door in a flash. Fog swirled behind her. No one gave chase. Mary was exclaiming over the ruin of her nightgown, Hart was calmly summoning uniformed officers, and I was digging in my utility belt pocket for the foil packets with the stain-removing wipes I always carried (along with bobby pins, safety pins, tape, needle and thread, pen, tissues, and various other emergency supplies that come in handy when a bridesmaid tears her dress, the birthday boy spills punch on his shirt, or a keynote speaker shoots buttons across the room because the last time he wore his tux shirt, he was seventy pounds lighter—true story). I handed most of the wipes to Mary, who took them with a muttered word of thanks and hurried toward a bathroom, followed by Lucas. I used a tissue to sponge at a streak of red infiltrating my cleavage. It smelled sweet. It wouldn't surprise me if the goo was Karo syrup mixed with red food coloring. I gave thanks that my costume was black and hoped it wouldn't stain. Noticing a sprinkling of red on Hart's forehead, I reached up to blot it.

“Thanks,” he said. “I'll be back in a minute—I need to meet the officers outside. Can you hold down the fort in here?”

“Sure. The excitement's over.”

I gently herded the guests who showed a tendency
to gawk back toward the ballroom, murmuring about food and drinks and a door prize drawing. Brooke swished along beside me, and Lola started to come, too, but then said, “Drat, I've lost my stake.” She rattled the empty sheath.

“Don't worry about it,” Brooke said. “It'll turn up.”

Ignoring her, Lola pushed her glasses up, dislodging her eye patch, and said, “It must have fallen out on the stairs. I'll catch up with you.”

The party got louder over the next half hour and had just begun to simmer down as a few people drifted out, when Wallace Pinnecoose appeared beside me. Half a foot taller than me, he was a solid man in his sixties, with bronze skin, iron gray hair slicked back from his brow, and a stiff posture that showed off his black suit and crisp white shirt. He could have walked into any British period piece and assumed the role of butler with no rehearsal, or onto the set of a Western and acted the part of a warring chief. Those two roles should have been mutually exclusive, but somehow they both fit Wallace. He waited while I finished a conversation, and then said in a low, measured voice, “Amy-Faye, we've got a problem.”

I stiffened. I'd never heard Wallace use the word “problem” before. He referred to “situations” (a thieving bartender) or “incidents” (a bridesmaid and a groom found naked on Wallace's desk during a reception) or “occurrences” (a three-alarm fire in the kitchen) and dealt with them with sangfroid, never looking stressed or breaking a sweat. Right now, he definitely looked stressed, and sweat beaded his high brow. He dabbed it with a snowy handkerchief.

“What's up?” I asked, instinctively speaking in a whisper.

“Is Detective Hart still here?”

My unease ticked up a notch. Wallace never wanted to involve the police in any of the Club's incidents, preferring to keep things quiet so as not to harm the Club's reputation.

“I haven't seen him since the scuffle earlier.”

Wallace tipped his head to the right and I followed him, weaving my way through the gradually thinning crowd. We left the party behind and turned down a dimly lit hallway that led to the Club's administrative offices. Golf and tennis trophies in glass cases were interspersed with framed photos from various tournaments and an oil painting or two of former chairmen of the Club's board of directors. Halfway down the hall, a door with a crash bar led to the parking lot, and just past that, on the left, were two restrooms. The faint scent of chemical-lavender cleaning products seeped from them. The crowd noise diminished as we neared the end of the hall.